Razg Stories
by Frank Exchange of Views
Summary: A series of one-shots dealing with the Razg Concordiat within the setting of the original Gateworld Virtual Fleet world-building group.
1. Screams In The Black

February 14, 2060

The Reaper War

The asteroid dwarfed the small nimble RIU coming up to one of it's docking tubes. Matching vectors perfectly with the finesse of a high mass/drive ratio craft. It's pod mates were circling the system, alert for any danger, a pod _never _re-supplied at the same time. The small critter docked was the Mobene, an older but still formidable monitor. Here to pick up vital commodities: air, food, entertainment, shore leave, and to top off their ammo magazines.

A hyperspace window opened above the ecliptic, disgorging a hive and it's escorts in rapid order.

Zara Nuey- captain of the monitor Belaqua- woke up immediately as the total systems data sharing net sent adrenalin pumping through her body via her neural network, and started for the door.

_Sitrep: Thirty-seven ships of unknown affiliation (visual) have entered the system from high above the ecliptic, and are approaching the colony at significant speed; formation and deployment patterns indicate hostile intent (49% probability). They have not responded to hails._

Zara accessed the data as she reached the door less than a second after she woke up, and went over it as she rushed to her action station.

Sensors on all monitors and civilian stations are incapable of achieving a solid lock, FTL sensors appear particularly affected with almost no resolution, radar imaging is likewise useless, thermal imaging is fuzzy, but infrared and LIDAR appear unaffected.

The door slid shut behind her immediately as she jumped into the metal egg that was her station, and it started flooding just as fast. She quickly lay down on the forward leaning crash couch, laying her tail straight behind her (already sloshing in the fluid) and let the restraints unfold over her, crash netting becoming taught. She repressed the uncomfortable sensation of breathing in a liquid, and took a deep breath of the oxygen rich fluid.

The Reapers started deploying fighters, a few squads headed for the station and the ships, but most to cull the planet, a hundred and twenty total. Followed by a few destroyers and cruisers. While the hive and the rest of it's escort continued on impassively.

As the hard line connection clicked in to place behind Zara's head, linking her to the ship's main computer network, she felt the familiar disorientation, being part of the ship, the crew's colorful thoughts raced across the logical and calculating computer. A lot of officers had a problem with the neural interface, a computer is a lot different from an organic brain, it took decades to perfect a design similar enough to the Razg neural network for people to actually be able to use without going into a coma. And it still wasn't perfect; over half the dropouts from OCS were discharged with neural integration problems.

_All ships report combat readiness. Updating battlefield simulation parameters. Simulating…_

_Komar asteroid settlement reports FTL readiness. Three commercial platforms in transit, ETA: twenty nine seconds. ETA of inbound enemy fighters: 20 seconds, ETA of inbound enemy capital ships: 30 seconds, ETA of main enemy formation: 250 seconds._

_Primary Objective: Buy time for civilian population to evacuate._

_Secondary Objective: Gather data on enemy technology and tactics._

_Tertiary Objective: Stop the enemy from making planet fall until reinforcements arrive._

The pod's computers shared processing power, plotting the enemy ship's vectors, then the best possible intercept courses. Then re-plotted the enemy vectors in reaction to the interception, then plotted the best approach to taking out the capital ships, and so on and so on, until it had made a list of several hundred likely scenarios. Simulation complete. And informed Zara of the best way to attack.

She wasn't going to argue with the computers. She authorized the attack.

The monitors didn't bother extending their rail guns at such short range, they just loaded scattershot munitions and fired - the relativistic sand grains tore the fighters apart.

A few dozen took only glancing hits and fired off their disruptor torpedoes- too late, interceptor fire sealed the deal and knocked the missiles spinning into space.

The cruiser and destroyer formation exploded outwards, trying to flank the accelerating monitors. But meantime, the asteroid's entourage of mining ships, refineries, manufacturing, and botanical plants were secured, and the cargo sleds docked, so the entire asteroid powered up it's hyper drive, launched its AKVs, and jumped.

The AKVs drives burned brightly as Zara ordered them into waves of attack drones, interceptors, and defensive screens and armed their warheads sending them into the heart of the enemy formation.

Unlike most space navies, the Razg did not go for the heavier ship first, instead preying on the weaker and reducing the enemy's ability to outflank them. The Monitors micro jumped again, around one of the destroyers. Catching it between the crossfire of their main guns.

The destroyer shook with multiple RKV impacts, holes appeared in it's sides, and patches of the hull glowed red briefly before exploding outward where the relativistic remains punched through, until it's cold fusion plant ruptured, and the pressure split the hull from the nose down like a banana.

The monitors accelerated again, going after another destroyer, this one had a wingman, and the Mobene came in a little too close, a shot from the destroyer's top batteries impacted on an angle, the smaller ship rolled deftly, spreading the blast over a larger surface and giving the gravity stress fields longer to tear it apart, but still took damage to the shields.

The Belaqua renewed her attack immediately, swooping in to draw fire, as the Guben and Takyan covered its dash with heavy bombardments.

By now the other destroyers had moved into DEW range, and opened with their main beams. As the gravity stress projectors overlapped their beams with the enemy ones, the computers measured scatter, intensity of the enemy beam, analyzed it across the entire spectrum and stored the information.

The nimble monitors danced out of the way, except Guben, who took a hit across the top west quarter. Leaving a gash through it's wipple shield and k-foam, but bouncing off its armor.

The monitors jumped again, to the back of the destroyer pack, and concentrated fire on a single destroyer, but refraining from using their RKV guns. As they pounded it the, sensors on the monitors looked at them very closely, registering their melting temperature, their vaporization temperature, and their structural integrity where the bolts had imparted the hull with minimum refraction in massed bombardment, cataloguing the data for later reference.

Behind them, the main body of the Reaper fleet opened fire, catching them in a crossfire, but the advance force now had to split it's attention between the RIUs and the incoming AKVs, who were starting to scatter sub-munitions, a bright cone of fire formed between the Repaper ships and their attackers as sub munitions and energy bolts sought each other out and annihilated, lighting up space and blinding sensors.

Zara had timed it perfectly, the distraction was all that was needed for the pod to finish off the enemy with their main guns and change vectors to jump. This time far out, it was time for a strategy change. Zara relayed new orders to the pod. As they took a few precious seconds to plan, thirty two metal spikes separated from their collective hulls, cloaked and went wising off towards the enemy, to arrive in a few minutes once they'd accelerated to their maximum velocity.

Again, the pod jumped, this time right into the enemy formation, relatively speaking. They were still many miles from any ship on either side, but this was considered knife-fight range for space combat.

They moved erratically now, seemingly without purpose, using their main guns before their victims could turn on them with the particle beams, and changing direction dodging the slower energy bolts.

The next few minutes Zara's body went through every hell an organic mind could think of, the acceleration was massive, even with the liquid suspension, physical reinforcements, and all, she would still come out of the metal cocoon bruised and aching all over. The mental stress was equally great, the pod was puling multiple unsynchronized micro jumps to get them clear of danger, and this placed enormous computing loads on everyone, the crew was part of the ship's computer network, command saw no reason not to make use of the augmentations that amounted to an early 21st century (non SG) earth supercomputer. The ship's painkillers would see a lot of use later.

By now, only the interceptor screens had remained, and the separate Reaper formations had blended together into a massive ball. The RIUs guns bit into any hull they could turn on, in a complete free for all, the captains of the RIUs picked targets by the angle changes to the main gun needed to reach them. The destroyers fell one by one, their small, weak hulls, no match to the penetrating power of RKV rounds. The bigger capital ship on the other hand were more of a problem, their sheer size meant the RIUs could turn them into the Razg equivalent of Swiss cheese and they would still function. 200 cm holes were almost negligible, even the resulting relativistic plasma and internal damage didn't hinder them overly.

The monitors were also taking damage, Belaqua's shields extended suddenly and levered an energy bolt out of the way. The Takyan lost one of its inertial dampeners as the hive's beam pierced deep into its hull.

It was time for a change of plans; the monitors accelerated brutally- closing on one of the remaining destroyers, limping weakly into the hive's defensive envelope. The destroyer's DF flared, spreading out excess energy over the hull as the RIUs speared it with interceptors, wearing down it's defenses, spewing atmosphere as it's windows cracked. Its muzzles were melted off, and it's sensors blinded.

Then the Hive shook, it's armor actually rippled as shockwaves traveled through it, thirty two relativistic munitions, smashed straight through it's glacis plate, with a velocity difference of just over 99 PSL. Relativistic plasma blossomed into it's interior, patches of armor started glowing red as the plasma traveled along the inner surface. Power surges ran rampant; several guns had their barrels fused by the charges.

In their protective armored spheres every crewmember of the monitors started to spas violently, trashing limbs, arching their backs and heads. The restraints tightened, to secure them and the computers were about to jump away as protocol dictated when they caught the fault. Their brain waves were off the charts, totally off, more importantly they didn't match the scans in the database, which means the computers pointed a finger at the only suspect, telepathy. And activated a series of programs developed some time ago by the more paranoid spooks at O.I.I. Telepaths couldn't read computers, and the nanites in the crewmen's' brains were fully operational, they filtered out the alien brain waves, erecting any and all force fields around the crew compartments to interfere with the enemy broadcasting.

Zara's body trashed but he restraints held, the first thing she was conscious of was screaming, it blocked out everything and she trashed around trying to clear her head until it subsided as more blocks went into place over her mind, blocking out the thoughts of a thousand aliens out to kill her.

Mobene shook as it was hit by a blast from one of the reaming cruisers, bringing everyone's attention back to the situation at hand. Even so, there were…Zara struggled to place the feeling into understandable thought…gaps-in the TSDS net. The bio readout showed two of her crewmen were unconscious; the ship had sedated them as they had been affected the worst.

The monitors started their dance again, avoiding weapons fire. But their ability was greatly diminished, Zara made some quick and dirty calculations, with the crew loss and therefore computing power decrease on all vessels, plus the damage taken already, and the resilience of the ships they would not be able to win the fight. Event the massive mother ship, damaged as it was, was still firing, it's resolve to blow them out of the sky clearly undiminished -trying to pin them down with crisscrossing beams.

An urgent omni directional burst from the planet informed her the last civilians were evacuating, that was all she needed to make up her mind, a good commander knew when to retreat, and there wasn't a better example in the book than this for when to do so

The RUIs micro jumped -slower than usual due to their loss of computing power- around one of the previously damaged destroyers; the RIUs converged on it rapidly. They impacted roughly, using their external gravity fields to absorb the impact. They shot out high-powered clamps, piercing the bio-armor with tips made to burrow into rock for better purchase. One on the bottom, between its engine pylons, one on top resting between the same pylons and the remaining spike, and two on each side of its' head.

Before the ship's partners could come to the rescue, the monitors synchronized hyper drives, and forced it into their window with their combined acceleration. Leaving behind the antagonized fleet.


	2. Flesh Versus Metal

February 17, 2060

The Reaper War

A hundred and fifty transit platforms thundered down through the storm clouds in the atmosphere. In the heart of Terra Hovos' capital city of Elesium, the rough impact, -inertial dampening and all- flattened a particularly unlucky market place. And a violent wave of air blew out form the pod as the top disappeared in blue teleporter haze.

Dark shadows crouched in alcoves and behind overturned objects and walls. Spines and pincers, twitching eagerly in the gloom.

Then violent craks like gunfire split the air as a hundred tiny objects began teleporting in, their appearance displacing the air and causing the gunshot like cracks.

Aerial view

A dark mass popped into existence inside the market and spread exponentially, it exploded outward, a shockwave of air rushed in front of the racing tentacles of darkness. Inside the dark cloud, weapons went off and culling beams poked though briefly before they were silenced. And the bodies of Reaper soldiers and heavy armor could be seem briefly as they were lifted up by the cloud before they fell back down- dismembered.

Above the monsoon season clouds covering Elysium, tiny stars flashed into existence and diapered as the CSN battle group vaporized whatever orbital debris before it de orbited and fell back down to the planet below.

Interceptors raced in, and more swarmed upwards out of underground hangars. The cloud of Razg hunter killer drones hadn't thinned as it raced outward, but now several kilometers in diameter, focused completely on it's task of sanitizing the ground as it's edge flared with futile weapons fire. The Reaper fighter raced in, arming their fusion charges, safe from orbital retaliation while their cousins continued to pour out of their underground bunkers.

Suddenly they break hard earthward, their instruments screaming lock on warnings.

Because the Razg had had several days' notice, and a variety of captured Interceptors, the units deployed on Terra Havos were optimizing towards the higher wavelength (optical, infrared, UV) detection packages, depriving the Reaper fighters of their stealth capabilities. Which in the day and age of sensor invisibility almost guaranteed destruction.

Above the initial landing site, several more teleporter platforms had been established, and now a flight of Razg Unnamed Aerial Superiority Vehicles thundered heavenward.

Dark blades painted in aerial camouflage. Completely unmarked save for the serial numbers, with a perfectly smooth, radar and sensor scattering surface, sliced the air as they sped to higher altitude.

Over the silent dockyards of the city, the Reaper fighters scattered as white hot tracer artillery thundered down, guided shells adjusting their trajectories to overlap the Interceptors' ones. Great fountains of concrete and steel sprayed upwards as rogue shells missed their targets and blasted into civilian infrastructure, and the fireballs that once were Reaper superiority fighters crashed down, starting fires amongst the warehouses.

At the drop site, the hunter killer masses had reached critical mass, now completely obscuring the city's downtown from aerial observation. AWACS had been assigned and ASVs kept pouring through, ready to provide overwhelming firepower, and the rushing wave began spinning like a sea born maelstrom- a cyclone of death.

The tornado expanded, five million drones, each the size of a human forearm, with edges sharpened to a molecule in thickness, shot outwards in a completely unexpected charge becoming a spinning ring of destruction, throwing whatever organized resistance the Reapers had on the continent out the window as every officer sought to brace for the incoming wave. It was blitzkrieg- lighting war.

They slammed into Reaper outposts, torn apart by dispersion fields, then flowed around them, covering them in a mass of sonic knives, skewering anything that came out, never stopping. Reserves were teleported in, they spread out and hunted down the stray Reaper that had survived the initial onslaught, ASVs fired on known Reaper installation, first regular rounds, then enhanced k-naq shells that flattened blocks around their point of impact. As DFs flickered out, hunter killers rushed down the tunnels, culling beams snatched away the leading units, but the main body slammed into the walls of the tunnel, cutting through organic circuitry and disabling local defenses.

Bursting into their underground hives, a scout fed clear footage of the cavernous structure, humidity levels off the charts, a heavy mist permeated by a sickly yellow glow, lacking any sort of walls or ceiling or floors or walkways, Reapers and their biological vehicles clung and clambered over walls, in turn covered in backlit exowoumb pods, each showing the outlines of various monstrosities in various stages of development; before a energy blast slagged it's housing.

The Reapers concentrated all their fire on the one entrance the enemy was pouring out from, hunter-killers were hit with energy blasts, melted before they could even enter the cavern, reapers covered every part of the space, from the floor, to the walls to the ceiling of the cave, and hunter-killers careered –broken- out of the tunnel, slicing apart accelerated growth pods and exowoumbs and Reaper nutrient stations before detonating in a last act of defiance.

Only the emotionless, calculating minds of machines- or the darkest and most wicked of living creatures were capable of such violence, and that day they dueled to the death to prove their respective supremacy.

A stream of hunter-killers broke through and carved arks in the Reaper counteroffensive, those not killed by the wildly maneuvering drones were killed as their mates tried to weed out the alien infestation moving recklessly though their lines.

Finally an ASV shell thundered into the bunker, shattering the opposite wall, and the distraction was all the hunter-killers needed, swarming in even larger numbers they pushed through into the facility.

An invisible hammer split their solid column apart, like a supercavitating bullet in water, the telekinetic fury of a chaos gun turning them into airborne wreckage before the surviving drones swarmed him and tore him apart.

A ball of superheated gas rose above the Razg harbor city; then exploded outwards and the camera had one last look at the tortured city, with towers bedding backwards in the wind, striped of their coverings, before a hunter killer spinning wildly in the storm obliterated it….


	3. An Intriguing Proposal

The Reaper War

July 17, 2061

Pale blue light played across the mix of curving walls and geometric indentations and equipment strips that was the architectural style of the Venii as the Stargate opened deep underground in V'yen's Off-world Expedition Centre. The room's defensive guns remained secure inside their harnesses, behind high-powered force field barriers as two Razg dignitaries stepped through, silhouetted against the bright event horizon.

The blast door at the end of the room opened like a mouth, retracting into the curved ceiling and an avian figure dressed in grey combat silks stepped forwards quickly to greet the guests.

"Exarch." Hera Varadu gave short bow to the Venii monarch. The Sharp hawk like features of the avian ruler shifted into a smile. "At last, we meet under…tolerable circumstances."

"As tolerable as one could hope for in a time of war." She agreed, retuning to her previous posture, a few centimetres taller than the avian leader, with a slender build clearly indicating low gravity ancestry.

"Indeed. Take a seat." He motioned to the short backed chairs around the low table and followed suit. A light breeze blew through the open balcony, and Varadu's neural nanonics caught the shimmer of a pale force field as she took a chair, _luxurious protection_.

"Now delegate Varadu, I understand you have a most intriguing _economical_ proposition for me." The Exarch's unreadable bony structure betrayed subtle shifts indicating intrigue to Hera's neural evaluation programs. Her aid placed a small data storage device on the table, which instantly created a menu around it as it linked to it.

"Indeed we do;" She paused and selected the one document in the devices storage. "…You may be aware that the Concordiat has successfully reverse engineered and _tested_ a hyper drive capable of intergalactic travel over economically viable periods of time, through whatever sources you may have." The Exarch nodded and continued smiling, but seethed on the inside, not only did this further widen the gap in their respective drive technology level, but he had had no word whatsoever of any such breakthrough, he would have a _long_ discussion with his chief of military intelligence later on.

Hera's neural nanonics picked up on the subtle shift in facial expression, posture, and even breathing, she kept her own expression under computer control but allowed herself a small inner smile. Her family had fought in the Venii Skirmishes, and not all of them had made it back.

"The Venii relay network is a feat of engineering." She continued. "It has been a cornerstone of Venii society since it's invention, older than the Razg as a developed species it links the Venii Conclave's holding from across the galaxy. Posesing no theoretical or practical range; it allows for the instantaneous transport of any ship no matter the size across any distance; linking together the entirety of Venii space." A turquoise wire frame of a Venii relay floated above the table, then reconfigured to a galactic map as she spoke. The Exarch clasped his hands in front of him, wondering where this was leading.

"The Concordiat proposes that we enlarge its sphere of influence yet." The galactic map zoomed out into a map of the entire local cluster. The Exarch dropped his hands and narrowed his eyes at this as another wire frame appeared overlaid with the first, showing a spacecraft cradling the Relay. "We propose a business alliance, the Concodiat navy will design and build a large intergalactic ship capable of towing a Venii Relay station with the purpose of establishing it in another galaxy as a gateway for ships allowing instantaneous transit, and in return we demand seventy percent of the substantial tax revenues levied as the price for using the relays." She sat back and let the ruler consider the implications. The Exarch's interested expression turned dark as if somebody had flocked a switch.

"This is robbery!"

Hera's lips hovered on the edge of a snarl. "Please, consider our relative expenses _your majesty_," She spat the word out. "The Concordiat has kept your borders safe from the Reapers- whether you want to admit it or not; our forces have drawn the Reaper's attention from you and the rest of the League. We've eradicated any Reaper beachhead inside League space with extreme prejudice, giving you the breathing room which has allowed for your survival while millions of Razg suffocate from Reaper bio engineered plagues that have been unleashed upon our colonies." She paused and went on in a calmer, yet sharper tone. "Not to mention that the Concordiat's share of revenues will undoubtedly be directed into the manufacture of warships dedicated to the continued war effort, whose economy, if you call it that, show no signs of weakness, producing thousands of ships in scant months, so many that even the Concordiat's economy, built over three centuries for this moment, is straining, while you would do whatever you pleased with your share of the profits. And once the Concordiat's protective umbrella is overwhelmed, the League will be easily isolated and broken."

She clasped her own hands in front of her as she leaned back, unblinking letting the Exarch consider what she'd said for a moment. "These terms would have to be renegotiated once present hostilities cease." The avian's language was devoid of tone.

"Naturally."

"A comprehensive treaty will have to be established in the meantime."

"I will forward the necessary requests."

"Then I believe this meeting is adjourned."


End file.
